Proposal for a summit about keeping markers legal

[Beaker]

I am all for the enforcement being focused on in-game situations.

I am sorry Steve but to say the EXL/OpenX did anything significant to check for bounce that prevented "cheat" guns going onto the field is wrong.

The check was made prior to the first game, the guns (on the OpenX field) were being tested arbitarilty, they were not following any set structure to the testing, they were NOT using the Millennium testing method, which flawed as it maybe, is at least some kind of standard. They were trying to get Eblades etc to bounce by holding them as light as possible.

However, they obviously had no idea about most guns, they never checked that hoppers were on when testing, never checked the boards in guns like timmy's that the eyes weren't on bypass.

This was all about 10mins before game on, and then the guns were all handed back, and away we went, not a single further check for the next 40mins of playing. So yeah some guns were "rejected" but once they were passed there wasn't a single further check to stop people just re-setting them back to a "cheat" state.

Anyway, that is just an example of why I am completly behind evil.one and Simons thoughts on in game checks. That - coupled with regular spot checks using stationary ballistic chrono ala Robby means that (as long as penalties are enforced) players will find the risk/reward falls much closer to the legal side than it does now.

Plus, if you have 99.9% of guns legal with these in game and good spot checking, then it is effectively a self limiting cap because of the realities of how fast people can actually consistantly fire.

 

[manike]

Originally posted by evil.one
1. You have to pick the lesser of evils
2. You need to be able to do a quick NON-biased check.

Agreed, note I'm also playing some devils advocate to make sure all bases are thought about/covered.

Originally posted by evil.one
so if they cheat to get to 15 I don’t care, the cheating and getting to 22 sucks,

I'm a little lost to the difference...

Why is it ok to cheat to one level but not to a level above that? If we are trying to stop them cheating why not try and stop them cheating?

Also part of the issue (for Europe anyway) is the physical legality of guns that can dishcarge more than one shot per pull. I think that's one of the major reasons the MS and Steve are looking into this.

Originally posted by evil.one
A robot can shoot your gun faster? who cares. I am saying you enforce what is enforceable. Yes a ROF cap isn't easy.

Why enforce something that isn't an issue?

Right now the ROF isn't an issue. There are no problems caused by the ACTUAL rof we have.

Someone want to point out a problem caused by ROF? which is a completely different thing to the problems caused of people's pursuit of high rof's...

The problem is the pursuit of rof and people cheating and using illegal set ups and having dangerously light triggers. Those are the things we have to stop.

Wherever you set that ROF limit it still doesn't get rid of the problem. It just puts a somewhat irrelevant limit into place.

Originally posted by evil.one
I also hope everyone doesn’t go off on tangents and remembers we all played on the circuits, and I thought we were looking for what can knuckle head, half drunk, half high, mostly lackadaisical kids check for unbiasedly?

Which brings us back to my point in that the best solution is more and better refs. Steve doesn't like that one for some reason though...

You know what if you had multiple refs on each field with video camera's and the players were told that if at any point footage is played back and it can be seen that you are getting more than one shot per trigger activation then you would be banned.

I bet there will be far less cheater software and bouncy guns then, immediatly.

Easy to do, great scare tactic and easy to check. Heck we could have a big screen TV and slow motion replays... it would be fun to watch for players as well as naming and shaming anyone who is bad instantly...

Heck I remember a Skyball event where video footage made some cheat stop argueing and accept his fate...

 

[manike]

Originally posted by Steve Hancock
Manike/TJ can you tell us what your working on or when we are likely to hear about it?

Not if I want to keep my job.

 

[Lucky.One]

Np with the devils advocate, but the point can be lost. I dislike meetings were everyone argues for the sake of arguing and you get no where fast.

Checking for anything pregame other than reading code is a waste for the most part. Have a ref chrono the gun, take ten shoots to make sure the gun isn't out of control with some smarter guidelines and then default to the monitoring devices.

Have you seen sp patent on touch trigger they have assigned to them? Using sensors in a glove, in fact there several ways to activate trigger help that would be very hard to catch. Why do we care about one pull one shot? Because if the gun is out of control it can cause a double blinding, at least that is my assumption for caring at all.

A double blinding is much more likely the higher the ROF.

IF guns didn't 'cheat' or 'help' rarely would we see some one shoot over 15. People can talk a lot of smack but unless they wrote the code on the gun they shoot I don't believe a word.

The video camera would have to be focused on the trigger finger, despite the popular walk a wiggle is faster, the walk works because of software help. I think the mic is the best way to go, realitive cheap to and no lens to blast.

 

[manike]

Originally posted by evil.one
Np with the devils advocate, but the point can be lost. I dislike meetings were everyone argues for the sake of arguing and you get no where fast.

Understood, I'm just trying to point out potential loopholes so that if we come up with something it's as watertight and good as possible.

Originally posted by evil.one
Have you seen sp patent on touch trigger they have assigned to them? Using sensors in a glove, in fact there several ways to activate trigger help that would be very hard to catch.

Yeah, ever hear of a guy called Dan Voils? He made prototypes of that and showed it on the net years before that patent was ever filed for. You can find him as 'AuctionJunkie' on PBN if you are interested at all... You may remember him as I think he used to join us in Pigchat all those years back! but I may be mistaken

Originally posted by evil.one
Why do we care about one pull one shot? Because if the gun is out of control it can cause a double blinding, at least that is my assumption for caring at all.

A double blinding is much more likely the higher the ROF.

That is my major concern also, but I don't believe the increase in likely hood between 15 and 22 is as significant as it is between semi and any double firing at at over 10bps, since 100ms is about as fast as someone can react to something (and therefore drop a gun they were holding and pointing at their eyes...)

Originally posted by evil.one
IF guns didn't 'cheat' or 'help' rarely would we see some one shoot over 15. People can talk a lot of smack but unless they wrote the code on the gun they shoot I don't believe a word.

Absolutey!

So let's stop the cheats and the high rof is no longer an issue.

Originally posted by evil.one
The video camera would have to be focused on the trigger finger, despite the popular walk a wiggle is faster, the walk works because of software help. I think the mic is the best way to go, realitive cheap to and no lens to blast.

Yeah it's not completey easy but I've watched 'legal' and 'illegal' guns via video and you can see the difference.

But the threat is what helps...

how does a mic pick up whether it was a legitimate trigger activation or not? The only thing a mic can do it look at the rof.

I believe we need a way to monitor shots fired in relation to trigger activations (video is best right now) and a way to monitor velocity of each shot. On board chrono's (also now seemingly patented by someone that didn't come up with the idea ) .

 

[Wadidiz]

Originally posted by manike
Yeah it's not completey easy but I've watched 'legal' and 'illegal' guns via video and you can see the difference.

But the threat is what helps...

how does a mic pick up whether it was a legitimate trigger activation or not? The only thing a mic can do it look at the rof.

I believe we need a way to monitor shots fired in relation to trigger activations (video is best right now) and a way to monitor velocity of each shot. On board chrono's (also now seemingly patented by someone that didn't come up with the idea ) .

I am planning on buying a video camera to take with me to DMA and I have a few "allies" who will also be video recording there. Every little bit can only help.

Meanwhile I'm studying this discussion and trying to learn. Keep it up.

Steve

 

[Beaker]

Steve, if you want to try the principle out then find me and I'll shoot my Alias both legal and illegal if you want, then you can find out if you can "see" the difference.

 

[Wadidiz]

Originally posted by Beaker
Steve, if you want to try the principle out then find me and I'll shoot my Alias both legal and illegal if you want, then you can find out if you can "see" the difference.

Hey Beak,

Thanks. I hope I get time to take you up on the offer.

Concerning your previous comments, I'm sure you'll see much more consistency and thoroughness in Amsterdam regarding all judging matters. I still think it was a flippin' miracle that we had as much control as we did under the circumstances.

On the point of being able to observe illegal shooting, when I had time to study and observe players during EXL games I particularly looked for shots coming after the player's finger came off the trigger. To me that is one small tell-tale sign of an illegal gun.

We'll see how things work with all the little things we ARE able to do at DMA.

Steve

 

[Wadidiz]

Nick!

Originally posted by Nick Brockdorff
Although we can easily agree that is a safety hazard and SHOULD be illegal for that reason, it does actually not HAVE to be a deliberately illegal gun (meaning cheat board) under the current rules, for that to happen !

If you take a standard - out of the box - top gun, tune the triggerpull finely enough to just ride on the accentuation point of the switch, and start firing it, on some guns the recoil of the gun alone will be enough to have it continue firing after you remove your finger from the trigger.

I'm just saying so that you are aware that this can happen on a standard gun, that some kid playing Division 3 think he tuned to have an "awesome" triggerpull.... with no ill intent !

Another reason to have rules on the length of switch travel

Nick

Regulating the length of switch travel may be one good way to deal with the problem.

But so we're clear: if our judges or I see a marker firing some extra shots after the player quits pulling the trigger, that player will be pulled from the game and will face the penalties spelled out in the rules. You might as well get used to it; more than one-shot per trigger cycle during a game will subject a player to harsh penalties. It is the player's responsibility to comply with the rules.

Think about it this way, the customs agents don't even come close to catching all the contraband that comes across the borders, and those that get caught are probably not by any stretch the worst offenders. But that doesn't make the small-time smuggler any less guilty. And because the small time smuggler and thousands of others have got away with it so much ain't going to help that person who gets caught.

We are going to use every legitimate means at our disposal to get control of this and it might, in the short term, be harder on the petty cheats compared to the sophisticated cheats. Manike stated that the designer cheats probably only represent around 20 of all the cheats anyway.

The trigger test we perform is specified to be performed in a way that resembles playing conditions. We're not looking for artificially induced bounce, so I would appreciate it if you wouldn't imply we are.

If a gun doesn't get by the pre-game test, adjust it or change it. That's what happened on the EXL field in Paris. There was some bitching and some delays but we did manage to get all the games going and everyone played with guns. And I, personally, didn't observe any suspicious guns (doesn't mean there weren't any).

Get caught breaking the semi-only rule and expect to be effectively out of the tournament.

And it looks like we'll have a robot in Amsterdam.

Meanwhile I will try to collect and compile all the different ideas put forth here and look at their strengths and weaknesses so that they could be discussed in Toulouse.

Steve

 

[manike]

Nick!

Originally posted by Wadidiz
But so we're clear: if our judges or I see a marker firing some extra shots after the player quits pulling the trigger, that player will be pulled from the game and will face the penalties spelled out in the rules. You might as well get used to it; more than one-shot per trigger cycle during a game will subject a player to harsh penalties. It is the player's responsibility to comply with the rules.

Again, your eye is the worst measuring system you could possibly use, and is open to human prejudices and the will of your mind. Even if you don't mean too, you will see what you want to see. It's human nature.

Just be aware that most (all?) of the top end guns now 'queue' a shot if the activation is made during the previous firing cycle, and then shoot it as soon as that cycle is finished.

This is completely legal within the 'one pull one shot' rule. It's why as Aaron points out, there will always be a 'legal' 'help' advantage to electronic guns over mechanical guns.

And it's why the guns get such a steady shooting rhythm even if we don't pull the trigger with such a rhythm.

This can when someone is shooting quickly mean that you will see a shot after someone has released the trigger for what was in all sense and purposes the shot after the one you see being fired when the trigger was released.

This is also partly due the 'mechanical' lag of all electronic guns in relationship to the firing activation.

So if you just seem to see one shot it could be legitimate and legal software.

If you see several shots it's more likely to be bounce... but...

From the current rules 'queing shots' is perfectly legal. More than one shot per pull is not.

Not always easy to tell the difference.

If you are phenomenally fast (or say shooting with three fingers as I know one guy who does!), you could legitimately activate the trigger multiple times while waiting for a cycle to complete, then take your hand away from the gun and watch it fire multiple shots.

All legally...

But this is pretty hard to achieve with current guns and set ups. Including most current software as far as I am aware. I don't think any 'queue' of more than one ball should be allowed. But it's not currently dissallowed... and there's little you could do about it easily if you wanted to stop larger queues anyway.

But that said I don't know if anyone is currently using longer queues than just 1. I just hear rumours about it.

Not to say it isn't legal at the moment though...

So with all that said, human perception sucks. It's not a good system to use if you want to penalise people.